Talk about a fall from grace. Yesterday, former Philadelphia Eagles superstar quarterback, Donovan McNabb, went unclaimed by 31 NFL teams after requesting his release from the Minnesota Vikings. Among the teams that chose to “stick with what they got”, are the Chicago Bears and Houston Texans. Both teams are in the playoff hunt and starting backups due to injury. In Houston, both Matt Schaub and Matt Leinart are out for the season and the Texans will now rely on TJ Yates, a rookie 5th round draft pick out of North Carolina. In Chicago, Caleb Hanie is the new signal caller as Jay Cutler roams the sidelines with an injured thumb. Hanie was signed by the Bears as an undrafted free agent out of out Colorado State in 2008. Further worsening the blow for McNabb is that Chicago is his home town. If these two teams didn’t want to give McNabb a shot, at this crucial juncture, than this may be the end of the line for the greatest quarterback in Philadelphia Eagles history.

The Philadelphia Eagles biggest deficiency this year has been defending the oppositions TE. Tonight, the Eagles square off against the the Chicago Bears and the match up with Greg Olsen (who I openly campaigned for the Eagles to draft) may be the key to victory.

“The most accurate football simulation ever.” This is what the new NFL Madden 09 video game boasts. I figured, if this is the case, why not preview the entire NFL season simply through Madden. The skeptic may think, “well Kevin, Brett Favre is on the Packers, not the Jets in Madden 09 amongst other roster flaws, how is this accurate?” Well let me tell you, at the time simulation, the rosters were downloaded straight from EA Sports most recent update. They are as accurate as possible.

As seen above, this is the first part in a 3 part series of entries. Today I will preview the NFC. One of the great things about Madden is that it calculates MVPs, Pro-Bowlers, etc. These too will all be listed in this and the upcoming articles.

Before we start, let me just reassure the reader I did absolutely nothing to interfere with the outcomes of games, trades, etc. I simply pressed the “sim entire season” button. Here’s how the NFC stacked up…

Two seasons ago, the Bears were in the Super Bowl. Last year they were one of the worst teams in the league. So what are expectations in the Second City for this years team? “Your guess is as good as mine,” said Bears beat reporter Jeff Dickerson of ESPN Radio 1000 in Chicago.

The Bears will again have major questions at the quarterback position. Rex Grossman and Kyle Orton will battle it out for the top spot with no current clear-cut leader. “Rex throws the better deep ball and can stretch the field more,” said Dickerson. “Orton is the safer pick, he doesn’t turn the ball over.” While both guys have their flaws, they are are not going to get much help from their wide outs. “Devin Hester is going to be their number one guy,” said Dickerson. Hester has a grand total of 20 catches and 299 yards. “Letting Bernard Berrian leave was a mistake,” Dickerson said. “They should have franchised him.” Instead they went out and got former Redskin Brandon Lloyd. “He has looked good in camp,” Dickerson explained. “But can that translate to Sunday’s is the question.” Read the rest of this entry »